The propeller
roared to life, the wheels sped down the runway and the small
plane was lifted into the air. We were headed for home a mere four days into
what was intended to be a seven day vacation in Yellowstone, my
favorite place on earth. You see, we were almost six years into
this “single engine airplane adventure” and we had finally
learned to respect the truth of the axiom “whatever can go wrong,
will go wrong”. On this day we had seen on the horizon signs of
what “could go wrong”, so we decided to cut our losses and head
for home before it “did go wrong”.
We had been
planning this trip to Yellowstone for months. Which isn't enough, by
the way. It turns out that a trip to Yellowstone really requires at
least a year of planning if you want to stay in a lodge or cabin.
But, no matter, our family is the rugged outdoorsy type, so we were
happy to switch gears and make it a tenting type excursion. We did,
however, think better of our original time frame and changed from a
mid-September trip to a mid-August trip. Years earlier, we had taken
a 4 year old Maddie and an 18 month old Kier to Yellowstone and been
surprised and coat-less when it snowed on us (fortunately that year
we'd made our arrangements in time to get a room in a lodge).
We made
plans. We wanted to take a boat out on the Yellowstone Lake. We
wanted to see some wolves in Lamar Valley. We bought a viewing scope.
We dug out the camping gear, the coats, the hats. We were ready.
Two days before we
left on this Yellowstone trip, Cora (age 8) was complaining of a
sore throat and running a 100 degree fever. As a type-one diabetic
even a slight cold can be cause for concern as it disrupts blood
sugars and requires changes in insulin dosing. But, by the morning
of the first day of vacation, Cora was chipper and fever free. It
looked like we were good to go.
We crammed the car
and then the airplane to the gills with camping gear (and a few extra
blankets, again remembering the September snow!). The flight to
Yellowstone was beautiful. There were clouds on the horizon but they
seemed be burning off as we approached.
Shortly before we reached Jackson, Wyoming, we saw an impressively
large Golden Eagle in the air. The sight was beautiful, and more
then a little unnerving. He was less than 100 feet from the right
wing and at the same exact altitude that we were, close enough we could
see his bright yellow feet and beak. As we passed, he seemed to
realize his precarious position, he tipped his golden wings, banked
to the right and peeled away.
Upon nearing
Jackson, the air traffic controller routed us far closer to the Grand
Tetons than we would have gone otherwise. We skirted the
intimidating, craggy edifices just a few miles from their naked
peaks, the airplane's terrain warning glowing bright red and yellow,
telling us that those mountains reach up into the sky much higher
than the altitude at which we were cruising.
Flying over
Yellowstone Park itself is one of the greatest treasures that general
aviation has to offer. From the air you can see how truly immense Lake Yellowstone is, how remote and uninhibited most of the park
really is, and if you are really lucky (as we were on this day)
you'll be treated to seeing a geyser erupting. We circled the park
pointing out to the kids the spectacular colors of the Grand
Prismatic Pool, which once you've seen from the air is really not
worth seeing from the ground. From the air you can see the full
splendor of the vibrant ultramarine center that fades to a
translucent turquoise and the stark contrast of the unearthly amber
colored bacteria mats that snake off in all directions. From the
ground, you can see one side of the pool that looks like a stinky
turquoises mist.
After our aerial
tour of Yellowstone we landed in Montana's little town of West
Yellowstone just outside of the National Park. We snacked on PB and
J, picked up our rental car, grabbed some camping food at the local
grocery and headed into the park. As we neared our campground we
were slightly surprised to find caution tape strewn across the
trail-heads nearest our intended sleeping space. Our worst
suspicions were confirmed when I checked into the campground and the
“you're in bear country” lecture was delivered with rather a bit
more fervor then normal. It turns out a man had been mauled and partly
eaten by a Mama Grizzly (and her cub?) a mile from the campground a
few days earlier. Actually, by this time they had already caught the
Mama Grizzly (and her cub?) and euthanized her (and her cub?-- very
little was reported about the end result for the baby bear, gee I
wonder).
Bear lectures and closed trails aside, our first night was
beautiful. After enjoying the requisite camping S'Mores, Cora
snuggled into her sleeping bag, and Joel, Maddie, Kier and I spent an
hour plus sitting around the campfire staring at the crystal clear
night skying and calling out satellites and even a few shooting stars
that we saw streak across the sky. The night was surprisingly warm
and we slept well that night.
By morning, the sky
had taken on a light gray overcast and the air smelled of rain.
Drizzle fell off and on throughout the morning. But, anyone who has
frequented Yellowstone knows that a rainy day here or there is a
given and it's best not to let it hold you back. ( Eighteen years
earlier--almost to the day-- Joel and I had spent a soggy honeymoon
in the Yellowstone back-country). Despite a few raindrops, we spent
the morning enjoying the mud pots, the steaming and hissing “Dragon's
Mouth Cave”, Mammoth Hot Springs and its odd little structures
built of minerals and bacteria. In the afternoon, we even indulged
in a dip in the Gardner River where the freezing cold river water
meets the steaming hot run off from the hot springs making for a
perfect spectrum of water temperatures. But, while Cora seemed to
have made a full recovery from her cold, three of the remaining four
of us (Joel, Maddie, and Kier) were now requiring Advil, throat
lozenges and large quantities of tissues.
Late in the evening
as we drove home from dinner, what had been a light drizzle all day
turned into a frighteningly loud thunderstorm and a downpour of rain.
Lightening Flashed across the sky in all directions in a storm that
must have covered most of the park. It took us almost two hours to
get back to the campground. All the way we wondered if we would find
a soaked wet tent and sleeping bags (or maybe no tent at all-- the
wind was blowing mighty hard!). And what would we do then? We
already knew that there wasn't a room to be found ANYWHERE near the
park and it was after 10:00 at night! Still neither Joel nor I said
a word of this fear and in unspoken solidarity we ignored the
questions to that end which arose from the backseat. By some divine
providence, we arrived to a tent that, while soaked on the outside,
was completely dry on the inside! Sometime after one AM, the mighty
storm quieted and we (mostly) slept, despite the sniffing and the
coughing, and the nose blowing that went on throughout the rest of
the night.
In the morning we decided to head down to old Faithful and see some
geysers. On the way, we stopped to do a two mile hike to see an “off
the beaten path” geyser called “Lone Star”. We missed the
geysers eruption, and while we were there I lost my phone, but not
before I used it to take a picture of a perfect black bear footprint
that we found right in the middle of the mud (urr, umm, dirt) path!
We did eventually
make it down to see Old Faithful spew hot water hundreds of feet into
the air before the cold germs won out and most of the group felt a
nap was the best agenda for the evening. That night it was cold.
Like, really cold. When we crawled out of the tent after a night of
sniffing and shivering we found everything covered with a layer of
frost and ice. Rather then wait for someone's cold to turn into an
ear infection or a sinus infection, we admitted that it was time to
throw in the towel. If you've never flown in an unpressurized
airplane with an ear infection or even driven down from the high
mountains with one, I recommend you try to keep it that way-- it's an
absolutely excruciating experience.
Still, it's hard to
drive by the steaming mud and road side signs without stopping to
see what is there. So we maybe took a little longer then we meant to
arrive back at the airport that day. By the time Joel retracted the
wheels and the airplane climbed into the sky, it was well past noon
and the afternoon thermals and turbulence quickly showed up.
Turbulence is a
beast with many personalities. Sometimes it's the hit your head of
the ceiling kind, sometimes it's the make you vomit kind, and sometimes
it's the “I hope we don't do a barrel roll” kind. This time it
was the suck you up into the clouds and spit you back out, make your
ear drums burst kind of turbulence-- yep the very worst possibility
for our three head cold sufferers. The good thing about this flight
was we had already planned it to be short. It was a one hour flight
to the little town of Thermopolis (actually it took a little longer
because we spent so much time going up and down instead of forward).
Thermopolis boasts
the largest hot springs in the word dumping thousands of gallons of 135+
degree water a day. They have several pools, vapor caves and slides
and caked in mineral deposits from the
spring waters. But on this trip, as was befitting our present state
of health, we instead stayed in a hotel that had formally been the
“convalescence home”, enjoyed their small hot spring fed spa and
took an early nights sleep. In the morning, refreshed and with the
turbulence calmed, we headed back to Colorado.
Like most of our
trips, this vacation had little in common with the vacation we
thought we were planning. We planned to watch wolves at a distance
and through a viewing scope, instead this vacation provided a once
in a lifetime (we hope) chance to see a Golden Eagle up close and in
the air. We planned to explore the waters of Lake Yellowstone,
instead we examined the vastness of the sky. We planned to see the
eruption of a more remote and lonely geyser, instead we found a black
bear footprint in the mud. And there lies the greatest lesson to be
learned from life in a small plane-- live in the moment, be flexible
and always willing to give up what you planned for what is.
Cora
age 8
Kier
age 11
Maddie
age 14
P
